Melody
by Clio S.S
Summary: A miniature. Not really a Valentine fic, but... well. Bansai and Shinsuke anyway. Please, enjoy!


There is a single reason why Bansai stays with Shinsuke.

He doesn't care about so called ideals, like liberating Japan, expelling foreigners or, in the worst scenario, crushing the present order by... well, destroying the world. Who ever could desire such things in the first place? Bansai is sure Shinsuke himself doesn't believe that rubbish that supposedly motivates Kiheitai. Besides... destroying the world? It happens only in shōnen manga. In _Dragon Ball_.

It has nothing to do with a profit he can make on Shinsuke's business either. As a producer of Terakado Tsū, the newest star of pop and an idol of millions of Japanese, he has so much money it would keep him safe until his death. It could also satisfy his more eccentric needs, if he ever had those. He doesn't. From time to time, he buys himself a new coat or change his shamisen for a newer model. Nothing more special. He can't even remember the last time he checked his bank account on the planet of Helvetia.

One could say Bansai simply is bored. His music job takes only a few hours per month, so what is there to do with the rest of time? Takasugi Shinsuke provides him the opportunity to engage in his seemingly real passion: fighting strong opponents. Bansai does appreciate it whenever he can engage a worthy rival every now and then, but he doesn't need anyone to help him with it. In the universe, they always need warriors. He could board the first shuttle and leave it with a contract for a few next years.

He doesn't give a damn about it all, for Shinsuke gives him much more - and has no idea. Well, why should he? Shinsuke doesn't consider Kiheitai as anything more than a mean to reach his goals. He is the last one to imagine anything about Bansai.

While Bansai was heels and head in love at the first tune. In love in Shinsuke's melody. No, he is even more fascinated by Shinsuke's scale. Or both at the same time, he can never decide. And he never stops listening. He is completely addicted.

In the daytime, Shinsuke is antimusic. He gives out no melody; quite the contrary, he seems to absorb each and every. He is like a black hole that sucks the sound instead of the light. He is like an open would that no-one has ever dressed and that will never hill, exposed to the outside conditions. There's no emotion, no vibration, and the insane fire blazing in him is merely lukewarm unable to hurt anyone. _Shura_ is nothing more than an illusion. There is no life in the void, like someone wise has once said.

But at nights, when Shinsuke falls asleep, the melody is to be heard, a one Bansai has never heard and is completely sure he never will again. It's a melody of shamisen, piano and flute. Blue sky, rose sakura and golden hair. Laughter, crying and anger. Wind, rain and fire. For all his talent, Bansai couldn't ever create anything that would resemble it - but it doesn't matter since he doesn't try anyway. Shinsuke's melody, made of notes of joy and chords of happiness braced by staff of innocence, is a perfect composition of a life, and no-one is able to put in on a paper. Maybe it really needs the darkness and antimusic in order to shine and sound clearly? Bansai doesn't believe that more perverse harmony exists somewhere else in the universe.

He could listen to that melody until dawn, yet he always falls asleep, defeated by its magic. Once you step into the sunlight after the long night crossing, it's only natural you breathe a sigh of relief and calm down with a feeling everything is all right. He knows he will do anything to protect that melody, so that he could listen to it over and over. He doesn't need anything else. He doesn't intend anything else.

Only sometimes, when dreaming the dreams full of light and the absolute music of living, he struggles against the wish to be able to hear it also in daylight, and gives in to the resignation he will never do. After waking up, he has no recollection of those dreams; he covers his eyes with dark glasses and can't figure out why he was crying. In the daylight, he can't remember the melody; there's only a painful memory of euphoria, and an intense craving for hearing it again.

He has to wait until the night.


End file.
